Biomes Blog

Entry #1599

Trivia (5 Biomes points): What was this thing used for? I found it out in a salt marsh last year when Mary and I visited the Cape Cod National Seashore. It's about four feet long, weighs a lot since I couldn't budge it, and dates back to the early 1700's.

Timewaster of the Week: Dress up Floppie the Clown.

Springsteen and Obama are wrong for America, paid for by citizens for Hillary Clinton and Celine Dion.

Stuff You Should Know: Collective nouns for groups of various animals.

George Lakoff responds to the conservative idiots who claim that liberals hate America.

"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind." -- Aristotle, explaining why I chose to go into marine biology.

Entry #1598

Use the wet floor maker to create reflective images of your photographs.

I love the Dilbert Blog, even though Scott Adams can seem a bit nuts at times (which is probably what makes him such a funny cartoonist), but I have to say he may be on to something here.

I’m sure we are all aware of how much presidents age during their short terms in office. Here’s how the three candidates may look four years from now.

Ben Stein is very, very wrong.

Buy Glennzilla's new book, Great American Hypocrites. Digby reviews it. As does Buzzflash.

Some of history’s most overlooked mysteries.

Entry #1597: Creole

April's had her name changed to "Creole", and she's settling in well. She's now partially crate trained and I've already taught her the "sit" command. Creole's six months old.

Although she won't let me out of her sight, she's taken a shine to The Boy as well.

I was in need of some sleep since I got up at 4:30 am to make the house puppy-proof. I picked her up as soon as the shelter opened at eight. Although she's half Catahoula leopard dog, she's also half Coonhound, and the coonhound features seem to be dominant.

She's going to fit in quite well at Chez Biomes.

Oh, and you can turn your images into old-style photos using this application. It's in Japanese (or Korean, or something Asian) but it's pretty easy to use. It turns that third photo into this:

Entry #1596

This week's Big Thing is a mushroom cloud.

A short history of the people of the Bikini Atoll. Over fifty years after nuclear tests on the islands destroyed nearly all life forms, corals are finally starting to make a comeback, although at least forty species are still locally extinct.

Photos of Arctic polar stations during the 1880’s.

I'm adopting April the catahoula leopard dog today. I'm going to be changing her name and I'm looking for some good cajun name suggestions. Right now I'm leaning towards "Creole".

Entry #1595

David Neiwert notes that nearly forty years after they were wiped out by whalers, humpbacks are returning to Vancouver Island. Here’s a thirty minute recording of the first whale song heard there in decades.

Stuff You Should Know: How to find Google Earth’s hidden flight simulator.

I know I quit with the water towers, but here’s a final one.

Ron Paul is a bit nutty once he steps outside the war issue, but this ad is visually impressive.

Entry #1594

This week's Marine Life Series on Daily Kos is about squid egg mops.

Here’s the Drake Equation, which is supposed to determine the likelihood of intelligent life on other planets. The web comic xkcd apparently doesn’t approve.

This is a photoessay showing what a week’s worth of groceries look like for various families around the globe.

Entry #1593

My new project at the animal shelter is April, who just came in this past weekend along with her three brothers. She’s half coonhound and half Louisiana catahoula leopard dog, which is a breed I’ve never even heard of before, but all four puppies are adorable.

Abstinence-only gun safety.

New atheists or anti-dogmatists?

Worth 1000 has a photoshop contest called animals as everyday objects.

Entry #1592: Recycled Bacon, Part II

Stuff You Should Know: How to cook bacon.

Wake up to the smell of cooked bacon with the Wake’n Bacon alarm clock.

Chicken-fried bacon with cream gravy.

Watch a huge bacon-eating contest in Boston.

Everything should taste like bacon.

Buy your bacon and eggs cufflinks here.

How to render bacon fat.

Bacon, it’s like a tasty vortex.

Entry #1591: Recycled Bacon, Part I

The University of Virginia has a program that proves the six degrees of Kevin Bacon. Give it a whirl.

The giant squid is only three degrees of Kevin Bacon.

The Bacon Blog.

And the Bacon Show is another blog all about bacon.

Bacon-shaped band-aids.

Which rots faster, bacon or eggs? Find out at the Bacon Tomb.

“Ma’am, we’re not gonna go down there and enforce your western bacon cheeseburger.”

Entry #1590

A graph on how the presidents stand up, from Truman to Bush-the-lesser.

Shoddy! Tawdry! A Televised Train Wreck. A must read by Frank Rich. And the ABC news website got almost 20,000 comments on the debate, nearly all of them ripping the network to shreds.

If ABC ran the Lincoln-Douglas debate.

Watch a catholic priest tear a Fox Noise reporter a new one. Good for him. (via Sideshow)

Cindy McCain does have some original recipes.

Stop doing my job! Jon Stewart on the ABC debate.

Call 1-88 Duh. God, this president is an embarrassment.

Let’s put this internet/email issue to rest here. The Costa Rican starving dog artist thing is a hoax. The dog was not starved or harmed in any way. The artist created the exhibit to show the public’s hypocrisy regarding the plight of animal abuse and neglect. Apparently it was a pretty successful stunt.

Entry #1589

Although I didn’t watch last week’s Clinton-Obama debate on ABC, I’ve read over and over on teh blogs how horrible it was. Watch the whole thing here and see for yourself. The people at YouDecide did a nice job of putting this 10-part youtube series together so that one segment automatically leads into the next one. Still, teh blogs are right: The questions were just awful.

Golden eagles are like nature’s gangsters.

Quote of the week:

“If you think the Democrats are going to take away your Bible you're an idiot, if you think they're going to take away your gun you're an armed idiot, and if you think they're going to take away your gun and give it to a mexican to kill your God you're Bill O'Reilly.”  -- Bill Maher

Personalized dolls can be made to look just like anyone you want. Makes the perfect gift.

Stuff You Should Know: How to solve a Rubik’s Cube.

Hug my beating heart.

This week's Big Thing is a Walleye, from  Martin River, Ontario.

Entry #1588: Why?

In yesterday's linked post, Robert Reich seems to have disabled comments. I don't know why, but in today's he endorses Obama, so it's all good.

The Dick Cheney emotional chart.

Dad, why is the sky blue?

Play! The world’s hardest game. (via Graham)

Why?

Catholic costumes for children.

Mary's here today, at Rincon de la Vieja National park.

Why choose if you can combine?

Entry #1587

Mary's with her kids in Costa Rica for the week, and sends along this photo of a howler monkey they saw yesterday.

How would you spend three trillion dollars. Go here and shop till you drop.

Via Atrios, I see that the Boss has endorsed Obama.

You might want to read this fantastic blog post by Bill Clinton’s former labor secretary, Robert Reich. The comments are pretty good as well.

Pet Corner: Talking dogs. The dalmation is awesome.

Entry #1586: Dead Things

Here’s a video tribute to Baryonx, a fish-eating dinosaur that lived 120 million years ago. It’s set to music by The Rascal Flatts.

This is the first time I’ve heard about the theory that it may have been mosquitoes that actually caused the extinction of dinosaurs. I don’t buy it, but it’s an interesting idea.

When bivalves ruled the world.

Senator George Vest’s 1870 Eulogy of the Dog.

Walter Potter (1835-1918) was a taxidermist with some psychological issues.

A newly discovered fossilized snake had a pair of little legs.

Entry #1585

Scarlet, the coonhound I’ve been working with at the shelter, has been adopted before I could get a photo up. Four new coonhound puppies are scheduled to arrive this weekend so I’ll start on one of them Monday. Meanwhile, Tbogg gets a third bassett.

My brother-in-law shows you how to install a flat speaker wire.

Boy.

Leave it to a Republican to introduce a bill called the Lightbulb Freedom of Choice Act.

Silhouette masterpiece theatre.

Animal of the Week: Ice Worms.